Your friendly neighborhood weight loss coach.

How to Have a Flatter Stomach

So, you want to have a flatter stomach. I can help you with that, step into my office. Here’s a multiple choice question for you. If you answer correctly, you will be on the right “flatter stomach” track.

Question: If you take three 40-year-old men that are all about 6 ft tall and weigh 300 pounds, and they all want flatter stomachs, who will have a flatter stomach in 6 months? The men I am describing are not bodybuilders or anything. They are couch potatoes. Your choices are:

A. Man #1 who will change his diet a little, but do 100 sit ups a day, everyday, for six months.

B. Man #2 will change his diet drastically. Right now he eats about 3,500 to 4,000 calories a day, but he will cut it down to 2,000 a day.

C. Man # 3 will workout a few times per week with weights and do some cardio, but he will not change his diet.

The answer, without thinking twice about it is…drum roll please…

The man who changes his diet, man #2, will have a flatter stomach than his two amigos after 6 months, without doing a single sit up. Sit ups, and other forms of exercise, have minimal effects on body fat levels compared to the benefits of a clean diet that supplies a person with the proper amount of calories. Please read the previous sentence again. And if you are trying to lose weight, print it out and tape it to your fridge. I’m serious, go do it.

Protruding stomachs are not a result of lack of sit ups or crunches, just like headaches aren’t from a lack of Tylenol. Expanding waistlines are a result of excess calories. Everyone has abdominal muscles. The difference between six packs abs, which are nothing more than visible muscles in the abdominal region, and a tummy that hangs over the belt, is body fat levels, and nothing more.

The man in the second picture above would be yours truly, Healthy Homeboy. This is a current picture and not photo-shopped. I practice what I preach when it comes to food and exercise. I know, I have to learn to smile when I take pictures, but give me a break, I was flexing, oh well. The point of the picture is to explain why my abs, and other muscles are visible.

The following might shock you. Sometimes I go months without doing sit-ups, but I do get indirect abdominal work when I do squats, dead-lifts, pull-ups etc. And you see the muscles on the side of my abs, under my chest, I never work those muscles out directly. Basically, my abs and other muscles are visible because my body fat levels are low enough to see them. If I were to gain fat, my muscles would still be strong and on my body, but they would be less and less visible. And if I gained about 40 pounds of fat, my muscles would be invisible. I don’t plan to gain 40 pounds. I must set the example for my Healthy Homeboy nation.

I weigh about 180 lbs. If I eat more than the calories I need to weigh 180, I might gain some muscle, but eventually I will gain fat. Calories do build muscle, but if they are not monitored, they will turn to fat.

Now that you know that what you EAT, and how much you EAT, is the most important part of a tummy flattening plan, I will let you know what else you can do to get trim.

M.Y.A.! It works. Please read my M.Y.A. article.

In addition to moving your arse, you should do some resistance training about 2 to 3 times per week. Yes, that means you should lift weights, ladies included. Each session should be about 30 to 45 minutes, at the most. Your body will thank you for it. You will boost your metabolism, and your bones, tendons, and muscles will be stronger.

If you eat the proper amount of calories for your target weight, you move a couple of hours per week, and you lift weights a few times per week, you will get in super shape in no time. Well, it might take some time, but you will get in great shape. (You can hire me to put you on a program. I’m the Phil Jackson of Personal Weight Loss coaches)

Fact:

To weigh 100 pounds, you need to consume a certain amount of calories. To weigh 150 pounds, you need to consume a certain amount of calories. To weigh 200 pounds, you need to consume a certain amount of calories. To weight 250 pounds…I’m sure you get the point by now. Pick a target weight, and then educate yourself on how much you need to eat to weigh that predetermined amount.

Think about dogs, you can’t feed a smaller dog the appropriate food quantity of a larger dog, because he will gain weight. And you can’t feed a larger dog the food quantity that is appropriate for a small dog, because he will lose weight.

We must all eat according to our desired weight. Don’t eat dog food though, it won’t provide all the nutrients you need and you might get sick. Even worse, you might start peeing on trees, sleeping all day, and sniffing people’s butts.